Payward to Buy CFTC-Licensed Bitnomial for $20 Billion

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, signed a definitive agreement on Friday to acquire Bitnomial, a U.S.-licensed cryptocurrency and derivatives exchange. The deal values Bitnomial’s equity at $20 billion and transfers its CFTC exchange, clearinghouse and brokerage permits to Payward.

The acquisition gives Payward control of Bitnomial’s CFTC-authorized infrastructure and positions the company to offer expanded products to U.S. clients, including spot margin trading, perpetual futures and options. Bitnomial is the first crypto-native U.S. exchange to hold all three Commodity Futures Trading Commission licenses for exchange, clearinghouse and brokerage.

Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, noted that Bitnomial spent a decade building clearing and settlement systems for digital assets, including crypto settlement, crypto collateral and continuous 24/7 markets, and said those capabilities cannot be retrofitted onto legacy systems.

Payward plans to let business clients integrate crypto services for their users through Payward Services, an application programming interface that supports spot trading, tokenized stocks, crypto derivatives and fiat on-ramps. The acquisition follows Kraken’s recent expansion into tokenized stocks and tokenized perpetual futures trading.

In March 2026 Kraken received a limited-purpose master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the first such approval for a crypto firm. The account provides access to the Federal Reserve’s central payment system and permits settlement over the Fedwire platform; it runs for one year and includes usage restrictions tied to its narrow authorization.

Deutsche Börse invested $200 million in Payward last year. If regulators approve the acquisition and the related license transfers, Bitnomial would add a full set of CFTC-regulated clearing and execution services to Payward’s capabilities. Payward did not provide a timeline for regulatory approvals or integration.